No one should be surprised if Jews rush to leave New York.
On Wednesday, the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan hosted an event led by Nefesh B’nefesh, an organization that helps Jews around the world “make aliyah” — i.e., move to Israel.
That idiom is common and Nefesh B’nefesh is a household name because, for centuries, many Jews have regarded moving to Israel as one of the Torah’s 613 commandments.
Some Jewish authorities consider even preparing for aliyah a commandment.
In New York, though, the powers-that-be have different ideas.
A mob gathered outside the synagogue to scream and chant obscenities about Jews being colonizers in their ancestral homeland.
The crowd made its intentions clear: “We need to make them scared,” they repeated, following their masked leader.
The leader elaborated: “It is our duty to make [Jews] think twice before holding these events.”
He might as well have confessed to a crime: In New York, it’s illegal to obstruct a house of worship in an attempt to intimidate people trying to enter.
Authorities could’ve stepped in and made arrests — but it’s not surprising that they didn’t.
Under Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, such crimes have almost no chance of being prosecuted, and it would be a waste of time to go through the trouble of booking the perps.
Yet Gov. Kathy Hochul has the power to order investigations into the group that organized this hate-fest. She’d do much good if she did.
The group, Al-Awda, has long been a mouthpiece for terrorist organizations.
It’s distributed pamphlets from sanctioned entities, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas.
Its longtime executive director, Abbas Hamideh, is a devoted fan of terror group Hezbollah’s ex-leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Here’s what Hochul said about the protest: “No New Yorker should be intimidated or harassed at their house of worship. What happened” at the synagogue “was shameful and a blatant attack on the Jewish community. Hate has no place in New York.”
Here is what she didn’t say: The people responsible for it will be investigated, and hopefully prosecuted.
That she didn’t says it all.
Another big reason Jews are right to worry was the sniveling statement issued by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
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Yes, he pretends he takes concerns about antisemitism seriously and is willing at least talk the talk of being a mayor for all New Yorkers.
Though he refused to explicitly denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada” — which is widely interpreted as “kill Jews worldwide” and which the raging synagogue crowd was sure to chant — he did agree to discourage activists from uttering it.
His spokesperson noted that fact after the scene at the synagogue.
“The mayor-elect . . . believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation.”
It’s nice that Mamdani claims to believe in the rationale for the law and, presumably, that what happened outside the synagogue was illegal intimidation.
Yet would he push for prosecutions? Ha!
Instead, he hastened to suggest the synagogue Jews had it coming.
Per his spokeswoman, Mamdani believes “these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
What incredible chutzpah. In the same breath as he implies “protestors” were breaking the law, he also tells Jews how to use their “sacred spaces.”
For starters, Rabbi Mamdani apparently is unaware that Jews have gathered in synagogues to pray about returning to Zion for centuries.
Meanwhile, Mamdani, Esq. seems to believe it’s a “violation of international law” for Jews to move to Israel — not the West Bank, not Gaza, but Israel, the Jewish state established in 1948.
The spokeswoman later clarified that only moving to the West Bank would be breaking the law, but Mamdani’s record suggests he has a broader view.
Either way, of course, no such law of any kind exists, but the comments reveal much about Mamdani’s mindset: radical, inverted, bigoted.
Think about it: Muslims and Christians should be able to move to Israel (or maybe the West Bank), if they wish.
Jews? Not so much.
If this is the leadership Jewish New Yorkers can expect, no one should be surprised when the next mass exodus comes.
The mob, the governor, the mayor-elect — and any New Yorkers OK with such views — are doing more to push Jews toward aliyah than Nefesh B’nefesh ever could.
Tal Fortgang is a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.